Chuck Ward is known for flipping houses, but last year he picked up a property with plenty of commercial amenities -- interstate visibility, thousands of square feet of retail space, one famous tenant … and a mechanical bull.

In November, Ward paid $2,725,000 for the building at 11220 Outlet Drive that is home to Cotton Eyed Joe, the iconic country music club known for line dancing, concerts and the aforementioned rodeo ride.

It may seem like an unusual investment, but The Joe represents a merger between two of Ward’s long-held professional interests.

He’s worked in the music business for decades, a career that started in the early 90’s while he was standing in the ticket line for a George Jones concert at the Knoxville Coliseum. A friend who was working as a stagehand spotted Ward in the line, and told him they needed help loading equipment.

The chance encounter launched a decades-long journey as a stagehand that included a stint on the road with World Championship Wrestling and his current role as president of the local chapter of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.

His career as the self-proclaimed King of Flipping got started at around the same time. Ward said that while remodeling an old house, he figured he could make money by buying homes, fixing them up and re-selling them.

One day he drove by a house on Martin Mill Pike with a For Sale sign in the yard, and called the Realtor. “Made $12,000 on the first flip,” he said. “So I was kind of hooked.”

That first year he bought three houses, working with a cousin who was a fireman and had time to spare.

“We kept … just doing 3 or 4 or 5 a year,” he said, “and then I got to 7 or 8, and then I got to 12 or 15, then one year we did 34.”

Flipping seemed like easy money, of course, until the Great Recession, and Ward nearly got wiped out. He said his company had more than 30 properties for sale when the market tanked. “We were sinking like a rock, I’m not going to lie to you, because you couldn’t sell anything,” he recalled.

But the hail storm of 2011 provided a well-timed cash influx, and Ward said that “after 6 or 8 months people started coming out of the shell, going, ‘Hey, we’ve got to have a place to live.’ And they probably knew eventually that we were going to run out of inventory like we are now.”

These days, Ward estimates that he has more than 60 residential properties, along with a handful of commercial properties. He’s eyeing land for a residential subdivision, and has been busy making improvements to The Joe, while also trying to find tenants for adjacent commercial spaces in the building.

And while his work at the stagehands union involved a large number of employees, being a nightclub owner takes the management challenge to a different level -- not to mention the later hours that are involved.

Fortunately for him, Ward says he’s never been much of a sleeper, usually getting by on four or five hours a night.

“I’ve made a tradition now,” he added. “I go home on Monday nights, that’s my night to catch up on sleep. I usually try to go to bed by 7 or 8:00 and sleep 12 or 13 hours.”

Josh Flory is a commercial real estate broker with NAI Koella | RM Moore. He can be reached at 865-777-3030.